AAF DFS - Fanball Week 5 Lineup Review

My favorite fantasy column is Adam Levitan’s Cash Game Review. Adam is so open about his process, even when he has losing weeks, and I really admire that about him. Learning how he constructs lineups is invaluable.

In that same spirit, I will be reviewing my AAF lineups from the upstart DFS site Fanball – currently the only game in town when it comes to DFS for this niche league.

Week 5 - Fanball Lineup

It was an extremely high-scoring fantasy week in the AAF. All four games hit the over and eleven players scored over 20 fantasy points (compared to just one player last week). Most weeks, you need a score in the 90s to win tournaments on Fanball. This week you needed over 130 points to take down the top prizes.

At the mid-way point in the season, I think we have a pretty good idea about which players are good. There are still upsets and some of the teams have evolved in extreme ways from the start of the season (MEM and ATL especially), but there aren’t many surprises at this point.

Here are the week 5 fantasy performances of players with more than 30% ownership in the main Fanball GPP:

WR Rashad Ross (65%): WR1 (#3 overall), 25.6 fpts

QB John Wolford (40%): QB2 (#4 overall), 24.8 fpts

RB Zac Stacy (36%): RB2 (#8 overall), 22.6 fpts

WR Mekale McKay (32%): WR4 (#11 overall), 20.1 fpts

RB Trent Richardson (31%): RB5 (#17 overall), 15.8 fpts

WR Charles Johnson (31%): WR3 (#9 overall), 22.3 fpts

Outside of Richardson busting (aside: it is crazy that he had an awful game, horrible game script, his quarterback got benched, and yet Trenton J Richardson still managed 15.8 fpts and 2x his salary), all of the chalky plays hit this week.

This league would be great for grinding cash games, but the limited action on Fanball and contest sizing of 9-man double-ups makes it tough to beat the rake since it will be down to your last one/two rosters spots every week. I continued my plan from last week of max-entering the main tournaments and staying away from the double-ups.

My Main Slate Exposure

I built ten lineups and ended up with these exposures:

QB Pool

Wolford - 60%

Mettenberger - 10%

Murray - 10%

Woodside - 10%

Bercovici - 10%

Another week, another big bet on John Wolford. While not as extreme as last week’s full exposure, I thought Wolford was a great play for only $6000. I wasn’t alone in this thinking as Wolford was the highest owned QB (and second highest owned player overall) in the main GPP.

Bercovici stood out to be due to his minimum price, locked in starting role (after Nelson’s injury), and his passing attempt volume in his limited action. Playing at home against the pass-funneling Salt Lake Stallions, I thought Bercovici was a fine play to save salary.

RB Pool

Bouagnon - 70%

Farrow - 30%

Stacy - 30%

Newby - 30%

Badie - 20%

D Johnson - 10%

Gardner - 10%

Folston - 10%

After Oliver went on IR during the week, I knew I wanted a big piece of BWONYO – he lead the Stallions after Oliver hurt his groin last week and would be the main guy in scoring position. I also liked Newby (basically min-price) to see an elevated pass-catching role in what turned into one of the few two-man backfields. Between Bouagnon and Newby, I had a Salt Lake RB in every one of my lineups.

There were so many good mid-priced running back this week: Farrow against a bad ARI defense after a 30 touch outing, Stacy as the flowchart play vs ATL, both of the ORL backs priced fairly, the league’s rushing leader (Gardner) at a huge discount. I ended up locking onto a few WR plays and then mix-and-matching running backs to fill out my rosters.

Folston was a great tournament play as the consensus was that the ATL offense would be much, much better in Aaron Murray’s first start but the confusion in the Legend’s backfield keep his ownership way down. At the end of the day, he was a risk, but he was also the starter and only $4200. I got lucky to sprinkle him into a single lineup but he was in my player pool.

There was a ton of confusion about Orlando’s backfield leading up to the game. Akeem Hunt popped off last week, but then was limited in practice early in the week. Adding to the chaos was that the team-released “Flip card” depth charts listed Hunt as the starter and he seemed to be trending up based on practices later in the week. And then an hour before the game, we find out that Hunt was inactive and D’Ernest Johnson would be making his third straight start. I wish I would have reacted more quickly and increased my Johnson exposure, but it didn’t matter all that much as nearly every running back went off.

WR Pool

Ross - 100%

McKay - 90%

Johnson - 50%

Bundy - 30% (pivot off Mullaney)

Ward - 20%

Lucien - 10%

Josh Huff also went on IR this week, locking in Ross as the target hog in Arizona. As Evan Silva points out, Ross is an NFL player masquerading around as an AAF prospect. Ross leads the league in touchdowns and had a plum matchup against the leaky San Antonio Commanders. Ross was 65% owned and I think it was a misplay if you faded him this week.

Mekale McKay was simply mispriced after a down week slug-fest in which Woodside only completed 11 passes. At $5100, you were getting the team’s top WR in a game that was likely to shoot-out. McKay’s targets have slipped but he’s replaced volume with big play touchdowns – a trade that I’m happy to make!

Ross, Johnson, and McKay are easily the best three WR in the league and there is a huge gap below that tier – no one else in the league seems capable of putting up a two-score outing (sorry Nelson Spruce). I didn’t like any of the mid-priced receivers on the slate and was happy to fill in the gaps with running backs instead.

My Lineups

As with last week, I played a condensed player pool. I mainly focused on two or three of the stud WRs and then mixing in running backs.

Week 3 Results

Unlike last week where I sweated ARI and when they hit, nearly every lineup I had cashed, I had some duds. But I was able to put together a somewhat funky naked-Bercovici stack that hit on Tarean “Alvin Kamara” Folston, Bouagnon, and all three stud WRs.

I knew I had a good chance going into the Sunday night game and I was shocked to see Mekale McKay at only 32% ownership. I rode the chalk wave with Ross and then started overtaking people on the leaderboard with #AlphaMcKay.

It was hard to watch Wolford and the boys struggle so hard in the first half, but it set up a great game script for a lot of offense: the Hotshots with their trademark frantic comeback attempt and the roller coaster that is Logan Woodside hooking up with McKay for an early TD before doing mostly nothing in the second half.

“So damn close…”

I was so close to shipping the main GPP this week. I was in first until the final plays of Arizona’s last drive when I was overtaken by a Wolford lineup. The extra money would have been nice, but I was mostly interested in the bragging rights.